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Time and Tide

Anyone who has been following my blog or updates of what I’ve been up to may know that for the last 21 months, I have been working on a full length album with my band Dawn of Elysium. I am very happy to say that it has now been completed to the point of having physical CDs delivered. The album is called “Time and Tide” and contains 10 tracks of original material. I’ll cover the contents and details of the album itself in more depth on the Dawn of Elysium website. This is more a personal reflection of the process of making it.

Despite being in bands for many years, it is the first time I have made an album in the sense of setting out to make an album from scratch and completing it. OK, in the last couple of years there has been the Suicide By Cop album “Zeitgeist” and the Dawnraiser “Blow By Blow” album but these were pretty much compiled from various separate EP and demo recordings. This was the first bona-fide “album”.

It was quite a milestone for me as well because I recorded it myself on my own equipment. Obviously this could not have been done without the fantastic performances by Emma and Charles and the production ear of Martin Hawthorn but essentially this was a DIY project for us.

The idea to record the album was conceived over the Christmas period of 2014, since we’d not recorded anything for 18 months at that point and there was essentially just one song released which reflected what the band had sounded like since the drummer left in February 2013.

I bought the equipment needed in the first half of 2015. There was a learning curve due to not having really worked with the software and hardware to this extent before. After establishing an effective workflow, the recording went down slowly but surely as and when we had the time to do it.

Music and vocals had been recorded by the end of the summer of 2015 and our aim was to get it finished by the autumn. In hindsight this was ambitious as it did not take into account any further learning curves required to develop the mixes to our satisfaction or limited availability of time together. We managed to release the “Trust” EP in October 2015 but there was still a large amount of work to do.

Over the winter of 2015, studio time together became very limited and even non-existent for a time due to unforeseen external circumstances. We carried on as and when we got the opportunity and by the summer, it was virtually complete. It was then a case of listening through mixes, making notes and tweaks when we could and when we were happy with it, Emma put together the artwork and the project was finished.

I am extremely happy with the results. There are always going to be things with any project which you think could have been done better and many many lessons have been learned. I’m sure there will me many more to come but further recording work should be swifter. I must give special mention to my friend and mentor Tim Walker at Voltage Studios. Although I had effectively “flown the nest” for this one, it was the many years of working with him which helped me develop the skills to do this.

Quite literally, blood sweat and tears have gone into the making of “Time and Tide”. The lyrics are very personal to me and I decided to dedicate it to my late mother. I just wish she’d have been around to hear it but then again, had she been then at least two of the songs would not exist.

The official launch date is 1st October, with the launch party at Carpe Noctum, The Library, Leeds with Berlin Black and The Danse Society. However the more keen eyed may have spotted that it is already available via iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify and a plethora of online stores. Have a listen, I really hope you enjoy it!